1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to fibre channel systems, and more particularly, to congestion control by using a credit-limiting feature for frame transmission in a fibre channel switch.
2. Background of the Invention
Fibre channel is a set of American National Standard Institute (ANSI) standards, which provide a serial transmission protocol for storage and network protocols such as HIPPI, SCSI, IP, ATM and others. Fibre channel provides an input/output interface to meet the requirements of both channel and network users.
Fibre channel supports three different topologies: point-to-point, arbitrated loop and fibre channel fabric. The point-to-point topology attaches two devices directly. The arbitrated loop topology attaches devices in a loop. The fibre channel fabric topology attaches host systems directly to a fabric, which are then connected to multiple devices. The fibre channel fabric topology allows several media types to be interconnected.
Fibre channel is a closed system that relies on multiple ports to exchange information on attributes and characteristics to determine if the ports can operate together. If the ports can work together, they define the criteria under which they communicate.
In fibre channel, a path is established between two nodes where the path's primary task is to transport data from one point to another at high speed with low latency, performing only simple error detection in hardware.
Fibre channel fabric devices include a node port or “N_Port” that manages fabric connections. The N_port establishes a connection to a fabric element (e.g., a switch) having a fabric port or F_port. Fabric elements include the intelligence to handle routing, error detection, recovery, and similar management functions.
A fibre channel switch is a multi-port device where each port manages a simple point-to-point connection between itself and its attached system. Each port can be attached to a server, peripheral, I/O subsystem, bridge, hub, router, or even another switch. A switch receives messages from one port and automatically routes it to another port. Multiple calls or data transfers happen concurrently through the multi-port fibre channel switch.
Fibre channel switches use memory buffers to hold frames received and sent across a network. Associated with these buffers are credits, which are the number of frames that a buffer can hold per fabric port.
Fibre Channel switch fabrics can have arbitrary topologies and a mixture of frame traffic where frame source (s) and destinations operate at different speeds. Quality of service and congestion management is desirable to optimize switch performance.
In Fibre Channel, buffer-to-buffer credit mechanism is used to control frame flow on a Fibre Channel link to prevent the inability to deliver any frames because of lost R_RDYs or lost frames. The R_RDY primitive is used to indicate whether a receive port has credit to receive frames.
FIG. 2 illustrates the congestion problem in conventional fibre channel switches. In FIG. 2, Host 201 sends data to target 207 and host 202 sends data to target 208, via switches 203 and 206 having ports 204 and 205. Target 208 link operates at 1 gigabit/second and all other links operate at higher rates (for example, 2 Gb/S, 4 Gb/S, 8 Gb/S or 10 Gb/s.
If both host 201 and 202 send data as fast as they can, then eventually all receive buffers in port 205 will get filled up with frames destined for target 208, which in this example operates at the slowest speed compared to the other links. Hence port 204 will not be able to transmit at its bandwidth and cause congestion in the overall system.
The present fibre channel switches and standard do not provide a mechanism where “available credit” can be used for congestion control and for managing frame flow within a Fabric. Therefore, there is a need for a system and method that allows congestion control based on available credit or “credit limitations”.